Dear Lactnetters, Last Wednesday I gave a lactation presentation to a group of ob/gyn residents and med students. I opened with a statement on my philosophy of being a lactation consultant: to help a mom meet HER personal breastfeeding goals, whether it be for a week, a month, or a year, not to impose my values on her. (This seems to remove the fanatic label) Then I quoted from a Blue Cross/Blue Shield meeting in MInot, ND, about the health and dollar saving aspects of breastfeeding. Then I said, "The last thing you probably want is a lecture from a nurse......(laughter).............so I brought a test instead!..............(groans and laughter). I then passed around the true/false test I had written last spring, gave them a few minutes to fill it in, then we went around the room for the answers. Great discussion time! I also had several handouts such as Dr. Newman's article from Scientific American, some on gray paper, some on buff, some on yellow. Also had some pictures/posters from childbirth graphics to show the anatomy of the breast and how a baby's mouth should be widely open with the tongue down and out (the only time in our lives when sticking out your tongue is polite!) There was a row of hunky guy docs, they got the most wrong! The women got the most correct! Later I found out the hunky guys were all med students. Most of the answers were false, I need to rewrite some of the questions so some are true. Received positive feedback later from one of the ob docs, and a couple of "thank-yous" after the class. I felt prepared, but happened to get 90 minutes of study time just prior to the presentation, and that didn't hurt any! My written grammar is pretty good (better than our governor's), but not so much with public speaking, but all I could do was be myself. It seemed like that was good enough! Susan Potts rn ibclc Minnesota ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html